It’s unbelievable that people keep having conferences about the mystery of low birth rates when we make pregnancy incredibly dangerous, have essentially no parental leave, and childcare is incredibly expensive.
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Right?! Off topic, but we keep increasing entry level law enforcement pay over 100K!!) and young people still don't want to do it - hmmmm, why is that?
I think there is evidence showing it has helped somewhat in places like Sweden and France, but not to the extent where it has pushed birthrate enormously high or anything.
It's not reversing trends, but maybe changing magnitudes. They're both well under replacement and trending down. I'm very much not a eugenicist, but I think I can admit that this problem doesn't have the facile solutions that people love to throw out.
Imo places like Sweden are at the cutting edge of advancements in social support. It is possible that big enough steps haven't been taken yet ($ wise). I also think culture shifts around males caregiving probably hasn't been enough yet either. These countries have been more successful than others.
Like ngl, I bet most of the guys talking about birth rate probably don't really want to spend time with kids and aren't interested in sacrificing much. If the most common part of your life where you mention kids is based around birth rate, you probably don't really want to do the parenting much.
I'd say ultimately, kids an unbelievably expensive and there is a huge opportunity cost associated with them. Elevating that opportunity cost is probably the only thing to help change that. (Money, social support, social life, career balance, gender equality, public services, safe communities, ect)
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